M.I.Y.O Monday: What Is Your Favorite Childhood Food?

It’s the food that throws you back to a time when calories didn’t matter and edible ecstasy was everything.

Note: M.I.Y.O. Monday stands for Make It Your Own Monday, a question thrown out to DCF readers every Monday to jumpstart the week with lively interaction. I also welcome questions and suggestions for future MIYO Mondays. Email me.

My childhood memories center on food, I always have my priorities straight where food is concerned. Bread, specifically toast, is the food of my childhood. Up until I was 11, I thought that all bread came from the supermarket, a rectangular loaf neatly packaged. My naiveté was shattered in the 6th grade when I espied my classmate nibbling on what looked to be heaps of peanut butter slathered on two thickly sliced pieces of bread. “Where did you buy that bread?” I asked her, wide-eyed. “Oh, my mom made this,” she replies almost flippantly. What an astounding concept – that you could actually make bread at home! (13 years later, that’s exactly what I was doing, but that’s another story).

When I was a kid, happiness was toast, almost anything on toast. I still remember my favorites: butter and sugar. The bread had to be toasted just til it was heated through and crunchy-golden. If it had even a few lashings of black, I’d refuse to eat it. The butter was often cold, coming as it did straight from the refrigerator. To warm it up, I’d scrape my knife repeatedly over the top, always in one direction of course, until I had a fine, oftentimes feathered “plume” of butter. I’d spread this butter thickly over the still-warm toast, the crunch of the knife hitting the bread was most gratifying. And I never forgot to spread all the way through to the corners, because really, how can you miss the corners?

Sugar now, white please, and lots of it. Always with a clean spoon because mom hated it when the sugar clumped up in the jar, evidence of someone forgetting the rules. Sugar sprinkled from a spoon silently lands on the toast’s slick surface. Sometimes I’d get playful and try to sprinkle sugar from on high – what a mess I made!

I had other favorites on toast, too. Condensed milk is one. Ohhh, I can’t even remember the last time I had condensada on toast. Crunchy and creamy, gushing into my mouth’s every corner, it was bliss. At the much-missed Ya Kun, I was introduced to Milo and condensada on toast. Now, I grew up on Milo but always as a drink, never a raw ingredient. On toast however, Milo assumes a more assertive chocolate note but retains its delicious grit. And with condensada, mmm… The version that Saint’s Alp offers is also a delicious throwback to nostalgia.

I think it’s time for me to make myself some toast. With butter. And maybe some Milo and condensada too.

Comments

As a kid growing up in a Chinese family, I was most excited when someone brought home (1) Country Chicken or (2) the chicken from Mr. Cook’s. Country is still alive in Greenhills, I think, but I don’t see Mr. Cook’s anywhere, it used to be along Araneta Avenue in Quezon City. And Maki Mi from Mr. Cook’s, I don’t think I’ve tasted the same thing in today’s famous Chinese restaurants.

I shouldn’t forget to put down (3) anything from Emerald Garden in Roxas Boulevard. We lived in Quezon City so everytime we had a gathering there (and about 80% of the entended family gatherings were there) I would be all pouty (distance) but as soon as the cold cuts emerged, all that distance traveled would be worth it. The only thing I can’t take, to this day, are the frog legs. Different strokes, I guess, since so many people have told me that it tastes exactly like…chicken.

mine is buttered toast with sugar (i prefer brown) on top too! My father introduced this wonderful snack to me as a kid. He still eats this for merienda and my 4yr-old also likes to eat his buttered toast with lots of sugar just like his granddad =)

My favorite as a child would have to be Champorado! Hot, thick, chocolaty goodness with tons of evaporated milk. I loved days when there was signal number 1 and classes were cancelled, I knew champorado was sure to be served. Sigh…

I have two childhood favorites – cheese whiz on piping hot pandesal from the neighborhood bakery paired with ice cold chocolait drink and ginataang bilo-bilo (made from scratch by my Mom, also known as “paradusdos” in my hometown, Cabanatuan City.

I never ate Cerelac as a child. My Nanay said I hated how it taste. So they feed me porridge or lugaw. And it turn out to be my most favorite food growing up. And it has to be the very thick kind of lugaw with some slices of chicken pieces. I especially liked the pakpak or wing part wherein I nibbled it to the bones. 🙂

We have the same fave childhood food however, I do mine differently. I use those Pullman tasty breads (I believe Gardenia was non-existent then) and spread a hearty amount of butter and like you, spread it on one direction and I try my best to spread it evenly. And then I sprinkle white sugar and toast it in an oven toaster. I would turn the timer knob to run for at least 5 minutes but then I always turn it off earlier because I don’t want my bread browned and burned… I just want the butter to melt! Sooo gooood!!! 🙂

Jollibee Chickenjoy. 🙂 I haven’t actually outgrown the hankering for a crisp Chickenjoy chicken leg drenched in sinfully rich brown gravy then eaten with piping hot rice.. @.@ That’s usually what I crave for when I get the fast food munchies and I save the fat-laden, crispy skin for last when I do get to eat it. Yumm… I’m craving one right now despite having some prime rib for lunch with my significant other. @.@

My childhood was filled to the brim with wonderful food, so it’s hard to name one favorite. Writing these down is making me hungry; making me smile.
1. Nissin’s ramen with an egg added to it while cooking: the egg would “scramble” in the hot soup.
2. Pork asado miki from Ha Yuan and bola bola siopao.
3. Thin, fresh, lumpiang ubod from this stall in Rustan’s Cubao. I cried when it closed down.
4. Veal bratwurst from the Sheraton deli with caramelized onions and Knorr seasoning.
5. Pancakes and waffles with whipped butter and a jug of maple syrup.

My childhood was filled to the brim with wonderful food, so it’s hard to name one favorite. Writing this down is making me hungry; making me smile.
1. Nissin’s ramen with an egg added to it while cooking: the egg would “scramble” in the hot soup.
2. Pork asado miki from Ha Yuan and bola bola siopao.
3. Thin, fresh, lumpiang ubod from this stall in Rustan’s Cubao. I cried when it closed down.
4. Veal bratwurst from the Sheraton deli with caramelized onions and Knorr seasoning.
5. Pancakes and waffles with whipped butter and a jug of maple syrup.

My Favorite Childhood food is the ones that I was able to buy outside our house aka street food: be it cotton candy , green mangoes or singkamas slathered with sweetened alamang, ice scramble with chocolate syrup and a dusting of powdered milk, dirty ice cream with a coating of bitter coffee and if i have extra a street burger with the works -then i have to eat it very fast else it will turn into a pink slab of mess (ketchup and mayo and a very wet coleslaw is not school uniform friendly) — i also miss eating condensed milk on a hardened bread, but i prefer mine chilled!

I was quite the picky eater growing up, but I could always appreciate a bowl of Cerelac (wheat flavor) with just a little water so that it was more like powdered yema balls than runny porridge. Just-baked monay with condensed milk was also a home favorite. Oh, and one more thing–ice candy in a variety of flavors: mango+milk+mango strips, melon+milk+melon strips, and milo+milk+mini sago. YUM! 😀

Dirty ice cream and taho! 🙂 And the fascinating thing is, the manongs who I used to buy from are the same ones that go around the village now, more than fifteen years later.

Milo too, on bread, and believe it or not, on RICE 🙂

Also, I spent many childhood summers in Tarlac and trademark foods from those years include jelly ace, which my Lola always brought me for pasalubong (it always came with a free toy top), and unlaid/unborn native chicken eggs (fresh from the farm!) that are cooked with everything from adobo to nilaga 🙂

hmmmm Prima buttered toasts dunked in anything!
Guava jelly on Fita biscuits. I still remember catching the guava that drips from the Fita holes LOL!
Ginataan halo-halo until now
Butter and sugar on piping hot pan de sal. The butter melts as you spread it on. YUMMY!

1) Aristocrat “barbecue chicken with java rice” when there used to be lawn chairs along Roxas Blvd (formerly Dewey Blvd). They used to provide a finger wash of warm water and half a calamansi in a small bowl
2) From Taza de Oro on Roxas Blvd…. “chili size”: a burger patty on toast smothered in chili con carne.
Taza de Oro was the pre-martial law hangout of newspaper journalists (my dad was one). It was open til late so we used to dine there after watching performances at the Cultural Center. (Yes, we stayed up late to do that. Usually we were the only kids at the restaurant at that time).
I had my very first open-faced roast beef sandwich slathered in gravy there.
3) From Taza de Oro again…a dessert called “peter pan”, an ice cream concoction (i forget what flavor) with chcocolate sauce,bananas, marshmallow cream and crushed peanuts
4)From the old Selecta Restaurant on Roxas Blvd…. carabao milk ice cream (mantecado and ube)and their pancit lomi
5)Sitting on the counter at the old Tropical Hut supermarket on Quezon Ave and ordering a hamburger grilled in front of you on their flat top (may have been the early incarnation of the Jollibee hamburger).
6) From Country’s Delight restaurant near the corner of Banawe and Quezon Ave…. Chicken Mami and Asado Siopao. The food had a cleaner flavor than similar items from nearby Ma Mon Luk. The tiny, brightly lit dining room had animated posters custom-drawn by Larry Alcala.
7) Max’s Fried Chicken enjoyed in the garden of their first restaurant in Quezon city
8) Savory Chicken with its addictive sauce from their original restaurant in Binondo
9)When we were a little older … Sole Meuniere (an epicurean epiphany that fish could be that good) and Poulet Grand Femme at Au Bon Vivant
10)There used to be a small outside counter at the long-gone The Plaza restaurant in Makati where they baked crisp, thin crust pizza in front of you in an old round deck oven (wood-fired? not sure). Mushroom and anchovy was another culinary epiphany.
11) Before this…3M pizza with its neon yellow cheese and sweet tomato sauce
12) Ube jam and Peanut Brittle from Good Shepherd Convent in Baguio City.
13) Finally,my first memory EVER and one that made me aware that I was an individual and that food could be pleasureable..warm chicken noodle soup mixed with rice fed to me by my yaya probably at age two.

A lot of these places have since gone out of business and a few have endured, even become franchised. But the originals were always the best.

My favorite childhood food is the flaky and garlicky hopia wrapped in coated paper that my lola brings home from her trips to the town. That, and ensaymadas yellow with margarine and sprinkled liberally with white sugar. I have outgrown ensaymadas, but to this day hopia remains as my favorite treat

Traditional mango shake! The one that is not blended. You “peel” the ripe mango meat one layer at a time to your glass up to 1/3 glass full, pour ice cold milk, and add one spoon of sugar and mix. Brings me back to 1994!

i remember vividly the exact time our neighborhood bakery would produce freshly baked goodies each day- (from 4am) to 7 in the morning; and from 3pm-till the goodies run out. It’s at those times that we would ask Ate yaya to run and buy our favorites- hot, freshly baked pandecoco and spanish bread; paired with a litro of coke- that at that time only cost us 7 pesos. Oh how prices have changed… (as well as the sizes of bread)… but ah, our childhood favorites remain the same 😉

1. Pandesal with heaping condensada as palaman
2. Milo in its powdered form as a snack
3. Green Mango with lots of bagoong and rock salt
4. Banana cue or turon paired with Coca-cola on a hot, summer afternoon
5. Melon juice with strips of melon meat and milk
6. Avocado with milk and sugar

The bubblegum-flavored ice cream (i think from Magnolia or Coney island) packed in clear plastic cone with a bubblegum ball in the bottom!! 🙂 do you remember that, Lori?
Now, Magnolia has a creamy popsicle version that comes close to the flavor of the ice cream 😉

oh my gosh – just came across this blog entry and just had to reply 🙂 here are my childhood faves —

1. toast with butter & sugar – still a comfort food to date when i can’t think of anything for merienda
2. peanut butter & guava jelly sandwich. YUM!
3. super duper cold singkamas with salty vinegar. i still looooove this until now.
4. chocnut!
5. iced buko, with munggo! oh how i am craving for this right now. it will beat the summer heat!
6. kowloon bola-bola siopao. i remember buying this on our way home from picking someone up from the airport. it was and still is the perfect midnight snack